Are the Major Powers Ignoring the WTO? Impact of Rising Mega-Regionals on Multilateralism

Organiser

China Institute for WTO Studies of University of International Business and Economics (UIBE)

Session Objectives

- Understand the reasons why the major powers are obsessed with mega-regionals and how they react to each other’s choice
- Explore the feasibility of mega-regionals in comparison with the multilateral negotiation
- Analyse the impact of the mega-regionals on the WTO and what the major powers can and will do to mobilise the WTO

Synopsis

The mega-regional trade agreements such as TPP, TTIP, RCEP have attracted most attention of the international trade community in recent years. At the same time, the WTO Doha Round negotiation is almost desperately stuck. While almost all major countries have involved in these mega-regionals , they seem to lose interest and confidence in pushing forward the multilateral negotiation. Are they really determined to give up the WTO? Are these mega-regionals really easy to conclude? What is needed from the major powers to break the stalemate of the Doha Round? The session will bring together scholars from the US, EU, China, South Africa to explore these questions.

Bernard Hoekman is the Research Director of the “Global Economics: Trade, Investment and Development” area at the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI). He has also worked as an economist in the GATT Secretariat and has held visiting appointments at SciencesPo. He has published widely on trade policy and development, the global trading system, and trade in services. He is a graduate of the Erasmus University Rotterdam and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan. He is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and a Senior Associate of the Cairo-based Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Turkey and Iran (Cairo). He is also the chairperson of the Global Agenda Council on Logistics & Supply Chain Systems, World Economic Forum. His most recent book is The Political Economy of the World Trading System (Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 2009, co-authored with M. Kostecki).

Jeffrey J. Schott joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics in 1983 and is a senior fellow working on international trade policy and economic sanctions. During his tenure at the Institute, Schott was also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University (1994) and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University (1986–88). He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1982–83) and an official of the US Treasury Department (1974–82) in international trade and energy policy. During the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations, he was a member of the US delegation that negotiated the GATT Subsidies Code. Since January 2003, he has been a member of the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee of the US government. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy of the US Department of State.
Schott holds a BA degree magna cum laude from Washington University, St. Louis (1971), and an MA degree with distinction in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University (1973).

Professor Lin Guijun is a member of advisors for applied economics of the Office of Academic Degrees of the State Council; a member of supervisors committee for economics of the Ministry of Education; the coordinator of international economics and trade major of economics committee of the Ministry of Education; and the executive director of International Trade Association of China and the United Economics Society of Beijing. He is also an editorial member of Asian Pacific Journal of Economics and Business and Journal of Technology Management in China, and referees for several international academic journals.

Professor Lin Guijun specializes in the areas of International Trade, Foreign Trade policy, Welfare Economics, International Monetary Theory, and Advanced Marco- and Micro- Economics. His paper (with R. Schramm) published in the China Economic Review in 2003 describes trade reform in China and shows how the policy of attracting the foreign capital into China affects China’s foreign exchange reform. His paper (with R. Schramm as well) on Chinese saving/investment difference is also received much attention: “Economist” in December of 2006 set a special section to report this issue. His paper published in the Journal of International Trade in January of 2007 about China’s “export poverty” is the second paper about this issue after Yasuyuki Sawada’s paper (2005), and is also the first empirical analysis of whether such “export poverty” exists in China or not.

Angus Lapsley joined the UK civil service in 1991, working in the Department of Health and then the UK Representation to the EU, before serving John Major and then Tony Blair as Home Affairs Private Secretary.
In 1999 he joined the Foreign Office, leading the EU Institutions Unit during the negotiations of the Nice Treaty. Posted to Paris between 2001 and 2005, he followed foreign and security policy issues. From 2006 to 2006 he was Deputy Balkans Co-ordinator in the FCO, and from 2006 – 2010 he was Counsellor and head of the Common & Foreign Security Policy (CFSP), CSDP and EU Enlargement team at the UK Representation to the EU.

Peter Draper is Senior Research Fellow in the Economic Diplomacy programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs.
His other domestic affiliations are: Lecturer at Wits Business School; and Senior Consultant to the India, Brazil, and South Africa think tank consortium at the Centre for Development and Enterprise.
His current international affiliations include: board member of the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis; non-resident senior fellow of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy; member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Global Trade and FDI; and member of the IMD Lausanne’s Evian Group brains trust.
He holds a Master of Commerce degree from the University of Natal (now University of KwaZulu-Natal).